Early life

Fedorowicz was born in pre-war

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

 Gdynia, Poland to a family of Varsovians. His parents worked for the newly developed Polish maritime economy. As a 7-year-old boy he survived the Warsaw Uprising

Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...

. In 1960 graduated from the School of Fine Arts (now the Academy of Fine Arts) in Gdańsk

Gdansk

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

.

Career

Fedorowicz was one of the founders (together with, among others, Zbigniew Cybulski

Zbigniew Cybulski

Zbigniew Cybulski was a Polish actor, one of the best-known and most popular personalities of the post-World War II history of Poland.-Life:...

 and Bogumił Kobiela) of the student theatre in Gdańsk named Bim-Bom (between 1954 and 1960). He also belonged to the acting company of the theatre (the main role of Dobry Duch in the first programme named Achaaa). During his studies he began his collaboration with a radio station in Gdańsk as an author and actor and also with the press all-over the country (among others with Dookoła świata, Po prostu, Dziennik Bałtycki, Szpilki and ITD) as an author and caricaturist.

In the second half of the 1960s he performed on TVP

Telewizja Polska

Telewizja Polska Spółka Akcyjna is Poland's public broadcasting corporation...

 (Polish Public Television), where he was a co-author of various TV shows, such as: Poznajmy się, Małżeństwo doskonałe, Kariera i Runda. In the 70s he co-created a radio satirical magazine 60 minut na godzinę, where he performed several roles creating famous characters, among which were: Kolega Kierownik and Kolega Kuchmistrz. He also held morning conversations on the radio. Together with Piotr Skrzynecki he hosted the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole

National Festival of Polish Song in Opole

National Festival of Polish Song in Opole is a yearly music festival in Opole, Poland. Together with Sopot Festival it is the most important music festival in Poland. Opole Festival is meant as a summary of yearly season of achievements of Polish song writers and performers...

. Throughout 60’s and 70’s he performed on stage, first in "Wagabunda" Cabaret (with Maria Koterbska, Mieczysław Czechowicz and Bogumił Kobiela, among others), afterwards in a programme Popierajmy się (with Bohdan Łazuka, Tadeusz Ross, Piotr Szczepanik

Piotr Szczepanik

Piotr Szczepanik is a popular Polish singer and actor.Some of his more well-known songs are Żółte Kalendarze , Kochać , Goniąc kormorany , and Nigdy więcej .From 1980 to 1989, he was involved with Solidarity.In 2008 he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the...

 and Ryszard Markowski). Later on, until the beginning of martial law in Poland, he performed on individual author’s evenings.

When martial law

Martial law in Poland

Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...

 was introduced in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, he decided to break all the contacts with national mass media. He performed mainly in so called "church areas" where he presented his caricatures and pro-Solidarity drawings. Moreover, he gave lectures during Tygodnie Kultury Chrześcijańskiej (Christian Cultural Weeks). At that time both audio and video programmes were released on cassettes in the system of "second circulation

Polish underground press

Polish underground press devoted to prohibited materials has a long history of combatting censorship of oppressive regimes in Poland...

" (they were also broadcast in Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...

). His idea in those times was to ridicule the regime TV news and he continued that after 1995. He was a host of the controversial programme Dziennik Telewizyjny on TVP. His programme went through a metamorphosis from the one about politics into a TV show. In 2005 Dziennik Telewizyjny changed its name into Subiektywny Ekspres Jacka Fedorowicza aka SEJF (Jacek Fedorowicz's Subjective Express) for several months. The satirist ended his collaboration with TVP in 2006.

Since 1989 he has hosted author’s evenings in different cities. For some time in 2006 he compered Z przymrużeniem kamery - the series of programmes broadcast by Kino Polska TV which focuses on presenting Polish classic comedy movies. Starting from 1999 he has been writing satirical articles that were published first in Gazeta Telewizyjna (weekly supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza

Gazeta Wyborcza

Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...

) and now, from April 2008, they are published in Wednesday cultural supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza.

Personal life

He is married and has one daughter, three grandchildren and one great-grandson. Together with his wife Anna he was engaged in Prymasowski Komitet Pomocy Osobom Pozbawionym Wolności i ich Rodzinom (Primate’s committee for bringing help to people deprived of their freedom and to their families) that was active during the martial law.

He participates as an amateur in long-distance races

Long-distance track event

Long-distance track event races require runners to balance their energy. These types of races are predominantly aerobic in nature and at the highest level, exceptional levels of aerobic endurance is required more than anything else...

.

Awards

Fedorowicz was a laureate of Nagroda Kisiela

Kisiel Prize

Kisiel Prize or Kisiel Award ) is an award awarded in three categories: publicist, politician and entrepreneur whose actions most closely portray the spirit and beliefs of the Polish publicist and politician, Stefan Kisielewski. The award was established in 1990 by Kisielewski himself, with support...

 in 1994 in the category of publicism. Other awards and prizes include:

• 1968 – Złoty Ekran (along with Jerzy Gruza)
• 1968 – Nagroda Komitetu ds. Radia i Telewizji (along with Jerzy Gruza)
• 1975 – Złoty Mikrofon for radio entertainment programmes.
• 1976 – Nagroda Komitetu ds.Radia i Telewizji for the team preparing the programme 60 minut na godzinę.
• 1987 – Nagroda „Solidarności” for satirical programmes distributed on video cassettes in second circulation
• 1996 – Wiktor '95
• 2000 – Grand Prix at the first Festival of Good Humour in Gdańsk and a prize for the best satirical program (Dziennik Telewizyjny).
• 2001 – Wiktor 2000 in the category "television personality of the year".
• 2002 – Gwiazda Telewizji Polskiej - a statuette given on the occasion of 50 years of Polish Public Television for "original and entertaining TV shows"
• 2002, 2003, 2004 –three prizes on the third, fourth and fifth Festival of Good Humour in Gdańsk for TV shows (Dziennik Telewizyjny and its special editions with the audience)
• 2005 – Superwiktor
• 2005 – „Gwiazda Uśmiechu” – a prize received from the audience on the sixth Festival of Good Humour in Gdańsk
• 2006 – A prize for lifetime career artistic achievements received on the seventh Festival of Good Humour in Gdańsk.

Selected filmography

• Do widzenia, do jutra (1960)
• Małżeństwo z rozsądku (1966)
• Lekarstwo na miłość (1966)
• Kochajmy Syrenki (1967), the script and one of the main roles
• Polowanie na muchy
  Hunting Flies
  Hunting Flies is a 1969 Polish comedy film directed by Andrzej Wajda. It was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Zygmunt Malanowicz - Wlodek* Malgorzata Braunek - Irena* Ewa Skarzanka - Hanka, Wlodek's wife...
  
  (1969)
• Motodrama (1971) the main role
• Poszukiwany, poszukiwana
  Man - Woman Wanted
  Man – Woman Wanted is the English title of the Polish film Poszukiwany, poszukiwana, a comedy released in 1973, directed by Stanisław Bareja.-References:* at filmpolski.pl* at stopklatka.pl...
  
  (1972), the script (written in collaboration with Stanisław Bareja) and dialogues
• Nie ma róży bez ognia
  A Jungle Book of Regulations
  Nie ma róży bez ognia Nie ma róży bez ognia Nie ma róży bez ognia (title in , in reference to two mixed up proverbs – There is no rose without thorns, and There is no smoke without the fire – is a Polish comedy film from 1974 directed by Stanisław Bareja...
  
  (1974), the script (written in collaboration with Stanislaw Bareja) and the main role

Books

• Porady estradowca dla kolegów dramatycznych (1974)
• W zasadzie tak
• W zasadzie ciąg dalszy
• 60 minut na godzinę (co-author)
• Felietony i dialogi (published beyond censorship in the country and by the publishing house Kontakt in Paris)
• Dziełka wybrane (1988, published beyond censorship in Chicago)
• Wielka encyklopedia kapitalizmu (1997, the publishing house Centrum im. Adama Smitha)
• PasTVisko (for 70th birthday, the publishing house Wydawnictwo Literackie Kraków)

External links

• http://www.przekroj.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1136&Itemid=48
• http://www.encyklopedia-solidarnosci.pl/wiki/index.php?title=Jacek_Jan_Fedorowicz
• http://www.filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php/111453
• http://www.filmweb.pl/Person?id=7104